


Shake It

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16265801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: Hazel drags Nico to a milkshake place because apparently there's this new cute blonde guy working there.





	Shake It

There was this blonde guy who worked at the local milkshake place. Hazel had been talking on and off about him for a good two weeks, which was weird because Hazel didn’t usually go for blondes. Hazel really wanted to go and didn’t shut up about wanting to go visit the blonde guy, despite his protests that he was busy, that he had school work, that he didn’t even like milkshakes. It was only when he was stepping through the door into the Disney-fied retro interior, having finally gotten tired of hearing Hazel hinting, suggesting and outright insisting they go, that it finally twigged that maybe she was talking about the blonde not for her but for him.

His little sister was trying to set him up.

With a milkshake guy. Was he finding it funny or was he furious? The situation was so cliché and yet so absurd at the same time.

They sat down at the table with Cecil and Lou Ellen who were friends of friends of both Hazel and Nico because their town was small and, in a roundabout way, everyone was friends of friends with everyone.

It made Nico wonder who the blonde guy was. Hazel not knowing his name had surprised him. He figured the guy must be new around.

Oh god it just got worse and worse and how had Nico crash landed in a teen romance?

“Ouch what?”

Hazel had nudged him in the ribs. She had a lot of muscle power and she was solidly enough built that when she nudged you in the ribs it hurt.

“There he is,” she hissed.

Nico tried very hard not to roll his eyes at his baby sister and only deigned to look in the direction she was trying hard not to obviously point in because it was literally the only way on earth to preempt the next five minutes of her cajoling.

Oh okay so milkshake guy was kind of hot.

And he was never in a million years going to be interested in Nico who was pale from spending too much time indoors studying, and grumpy from being friends with people like Percy Jackson and Jason Grace who were too oblivious and too observant respectively.

“Who are we looking at?” Cecil whispered, staring in Will’s direction in a manner that was completely obvious.

Nico didn’t think it was worth the effort to try and convince him to be more subtle because it wouldn’t work, but Hazel motioned him to be quiet.

“Him,” she hissed. “The new guy.”

“Are you talking about Will?” Lou Ellen asked, joining in the furiously whispered conference.

Of course they were talking about Will because everyone else who worked there they knew. Reyna who had somehow ended up managing everything despite still being at school and it only being a part time job. Clarisse who was slightly terrifying but got on weirdly well with Silena, the resident beauty queen and the one that the other fifty per cent of the room was staring at and whispering about. Harley who they were all pretty sure was way too young to have the job.

That only left Will as the new guy.

“You know him?” Hazel asked, her eyes lighting up in a manner that was faintly reminiscent of a horseman of the apocalypse. There was that same sense of impending and inevitable doom.

“He’s in the year above.” Lou Ellen said. “Going to do medicine.”

There were nods of approval at this as they all stared at Nico contemplating. Nico debated stopping this before it could go any further but there was a chance any protests would just make everything worse.

God his sister and his sister’s friends of friends were so childish. Hadn’t they left this thing behind in school? They’d be writing little notes next. Do you like the sullen dark-haired guy at table three yes or no?

Spare him.

“I’m getting thirsty,” Lou Ellen said suddenly. “No sense in us all going up though. Nico why don’t you go give our order?”

It was funny how Lou Ellen sudden realisation she was dying of thirst coincided with the first time that a) there was no queue and b) Will was the only one free to serve.

If he argued it would only make things worse. He dutifully took their orders and stomped up to the counter. Don’t get sucked in. Just hand over the order. Get drinks. Go back to table. Remark it’s a shame Will didn’t fall desperately in love with him and tearfully move on with life encouraging others to do the same.

He completed step one easily enough. As Will turned to make the drinks, Nico found his mind wandering at first into the had-Hazel-known-whether-he-was-single-or-not-before-dragging-Nico-here territory and then very deliberately to a thousand other places that were pointedly very far away from how blue Will’s eyes were.

He completed step two, receiving drinks without doing anything dumb and muttered a thanks in response to Will’s bright smile.

“You sitting with Lou Ellen and Cecil?” Will asked suddenly, just when Nico thought he’d escaped.

“Yeah,” Nico said. “They’re friends of friends.”

“Distancing yourself from them,” Will said thoughtfully. “That’s probably a good idea.”

He grinned.

“Can you do me a favour?” he said. “Because I know them through my sister and she keeps telling me I need to stop studying start living my life and she keeps trying to get me to give me number out to cute strangers on coffee cups. I have to remind her I make milkshakes. She spends too much time online. Anyway now they’re getting in on it and to shut them up I promised them I’d start giving out my number to cute strangers on milkshake cups.”

Nico tapped his fingers against his cup which was currently devoid of numbers. Will was twirling a lime green sharpie in his fingers, glancing at Nico with eyes that were slightly too hopeful to be as smooth as he was pretending to be.

“And how many people have you tried this on?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant even though his heart rate was very much not nonchalant. He could hear it in his ears. He was slightly suspicious Will could hear it.

“Oh just the one,” Will said airily.

Nico thought about that. It was improbable. It was insane.

“I’d let you,” he said. “Only my sister would never shut up about it. And Lou Ellen and Cecil would be insufferable.”

Will bit his lip.

“Alright,” he said. “How about this: no numbers on milkshakes but you could accidentally bump into me coming out of work at say 2.30?”

Nico pretended to think about that.

“I could accidentally do that,” he agreed and how had he crash landed in a teen romance? How was this his life?

Will grinned.

“You might want to go. They’re staring at you.”

Nico turned hurried and sloped back to the table where Hazel, Lou Ellen and Cecil were doing meerkat impressions staring at him with craned necks and eager expressions.

“Well?” they all whispered with absolutely no subtlety at all. Nico glanced over at Will, who was going about his job and not looking over at Nico at all as though he hadn’t just sort of, kind of asked Nico out.

Nico shrugged.

“I ordered milkshakes. He didn’t give me his number or fall madly in love with me. I mean really? What did you expect?”

The others sighed and claimed their shakes. While they were busying themselves with straws and working out whose was whose, Nico glanced up at Will. He winked.

Nico grinned and then turned his attention back to the table and Cecil’s story about a friend of a friend who knew someone who knew someone who…

He checked his watch. 2.30 wasn’t so long away. And perhaps crash landing in a teen romance wasn’t so bad after all.


End file.
